The bell hadn’t even finished ringing before the hallway clogged into its usual chaos—lockers slamming, sneakers squeaking, laughter pitched too high. Ribs tight, I moved slower than I wanted, Cassie close enough that her sleeve brushed mine, Roran and Kael flanking like shadows no one dared touch.

Then it happened.

A sharp crack of books hitting linoleum. Gasps. A stifled laugh.

I turned in time to see Bree and her lacquered little entourage strut past a sophomore whose bag had been knocked clean from her shoulder. Papers scattered like snow across the floor. Bree didn’t even glance back. Just a toss of glossy hair and a sneer: “Maybe keep a better grip next time. Not all of us can afford charity cases slowing us down.”

The girl froze, cheeks blotched crimson, hands trembling as she scrambled after her notes. No one bent to help. No one dared.

My sleeve seam was already twisting between my fingers before I realized I’d moved. Ribs protested as I crouched, sharp pain tearing down my side, but I ignored it. My scent flared rain-salt sharp, then steadied with marshmallow warmth as I reached for the scattered papers.

Cassie dropped beside me without hesitation, one knee to the linoleum, ponytail swishing like a banner. Together we gathered the girl’s things—Cassie’s movements precise, mine slower, clumsy from the ache in my side. She stacked the books neatly, pressed them into the girl’s arms with a smile that could cut glass.

“Ignore them,” Cassie said, voice low but lethal. “Mean girls only thrive if you let them.”

The girl’s eyes shimmered, wide and wet. She nodded once, clutching her things like armor.

I straightened carefully, ribs screaming, but lifted my chin anyway. The hallway was silent now. Dozens of eyes on me. Phones hovering midair. Waiting. Measuring.

“Apologies,” I said, voice steady despite the storm clawing my chest. “No one deserves that. Not here. Not in my school.”

The words hung. Not a princess above them. A princess with them.

Bree’s laugh cracked the silence, brittle and too loud. “Oh, saints, Mira. What—are you campaigning for hallway saint now?”

Cassie’s head turned, slow, dangerous. Her citrus-bright scent snapped sharp enough to sting. “Careful, Bree. Keep talking and we’ll see just how fast captains can cut dead weight from a squad.”

Gasps rippled. Bree’s face flickered, then she forced another laugh and tossed her hair. But her steps were too quick, her little court scrambling after her.

The silence they left behind was different. Heavier. Charged.

A boy near the lockers whispered, not quiet enough: “She’s not like the stories.”

And a girl beside him answered, softer but certain: “No. She’s better.”

Cassie laced her fingers through mine before I could combust from the heat rising in my cheeks. “Best damn princess,” she murmured, for me alone.

I smirked, ribs aching, pulse wild. “Watch me.”

The crowd parts slow as we walk, like the echo of what just happened is still hanging in the air. Eyes track me from every direction, too many, too sharp. My ribs ache with each step, not just from the bruising but from the weight of being seen. Phones hover, whispers flare and fade like sparks behind us, but no one dares block our path. Not anymore.

Cassie’s hand in mine steadies me, her citrus-bright scent anchoring against the storm in my chest. She squeezes once, a pressure so small it might go unnoticed, but it’s enough to keep me from bolting.

By the time we reach the library doors, the noise of the hallway fades into hush. The air shifts—old paper and lemon polish instead of locker musk and perfume clouds. My shoulders drop half an inch in spite of myself.

Mrs. Kline is already waiting. Like she’s been there since dawn, rooted to her post. Owl-eyed, ruler in hand, expression carved from something older than stone. She doesn’t even blink at Roran and Kael shadowing us inside. Just lifts the ruler and points, precise as a blade.

“No royal exemptions. Silence.”

Her voice slices the air in two. Heads pop up from carrels. Pencils freeze mid-equation. Someone sneezes in the far corner and looks like they regret being born.

Cassie’s grip tightens again as we weave between rows. My ribs complain when I lower into the chair, sharp heat lancing through the bandages. I force my hands still, sleeve seam screaming for me to twist it, but I refuse to let the room see me squirm.

“So she’s scarier than the Shroud?” I mouth, breath barely stirring the space between us.

Cassie doesn’t risk answering out loud. She scrawls quick on her notepad, slides it across the desk with a smirk sharp enough to cut.

Scarier than your mother.

The snort rips out of me before I can swallow it. Loud. Sharp.

Mrs. Kline’s head whips up like she’s been strung to a wire. Eyes lock on me, unblinking. I freeze mid-motion, sleeve seam pinched between my fingers. She doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t have to. The weight of that stare is enough to nail me into my seat harder than any throne.

I duck my head, pretend I’m very invested in the cover of my chemistry book. My three-beat tap sneaks out against my thigh anyway. Tap-tap-tap.

At the back, Roran’s chest shakes once with suppressed laughter. Kael doesn’t even look at him—just jabs an elbow into his ribs hard enough that he coughs. “She’ll throw you out too, you know,” she mutters, voice flat as stone.

His cough is suspiciously timed.

Silence reigns again, the kind that hums against my skin. It lasts maybe five minutes before the brave ones start circling. One strolls by pretending to “borrow” a pen they already have. Another hovers too close, eyes flicking from my uniform crest to my hands like they’re not sure what to bow to. Finally one works up the nerve, notebook clutched to his chest.

“Just a signature? Please, Your Highness?”

Every syllable scrapes my nerves. I exhale through my nose, heat curling low. Marshmallow warmth flickers, salt-rain irritation edging close to the surface. Cassie intercepts with her usual perfection, her citrus-snap steady and amused. “She’s studying. Try later.”

They scatter. Mostly. But one kid lingers—small, wide-eyed, notebook trembling in their hands like it weighs more than they do. Maybe it’s the way their knuckles are white, or maybe it’s the echo of that locker-hall whisper still sitting heavy in my chest—she’s better—but my hand moves before I think better of it.

Quick. Quiet. I snag the notebook and pen, sketch a tiny flame-sigil curling at the margin. Barely visible unless you knew what to look for. The kid’s eyes go wide, breath catching like I just handed them fire stolen from the gods.

Which is, of course, the exact moment Mrs. Kline materializes out of nowhere.

The notebook vanishes into her hand, ruler tapping against the cover like a gavel. “No autographs during study. One warning.”

Every inch of me locks stiff. Heat crawls up my neck, into my ears. Cassie bites her lip so hard I half-expect to see blood. Even Roran straightens at the back of the room, soldier-spine taut like he’s been caught sneaking liquor into the barracks.

Mrs. Kline returns the notebook to the kid, ruler pointed like a sword. Then she glides away, deeper into the stacks, the silence she leaves heavier than before.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. My sleeve seam is twisted so tight it might rip.

Cassie leans in, whisper soft, citrus brushing warm against my senses. “Best damn princess, huh?”

I slouch lower in the chair, muttering back, “Best damn grounded princess if she catches me again.”

Her laugh is silent, shoulders shaking, blue eyes sparking like she might actually combust from holding it in. The warmth of it seeps across the table, chasing away the sting of humiliation, leaving just enough light to keep me upright.

I force my hand to unclench from the seam of my sleeve, flexing my fingers under the desk until the pins-and-needles edge of panic recedes. My ribs ache from holding still, but it’s better than drawing more attention. Better than another strike of Mrs. Kline’s ruler.

Of course, peace lasts all of three minutes.

A shadow falls across our table. Another student, older, bold in the way only desperation makes you. She doesn’t even pretend to borrow a pen. Just leans in, whispering too loud, “Was it real? At Gloamhearts—your eyes—were they really—?”

Cassie’s chair scrapes back before I can answer, deliberate enough to make the girl flinch. “Study hall,” Cassie says, voice cool as the camellia notes in her scent. “Not press conference.”

The girl retreats in a hurry, cheeks pink, but not before I catch the flicker of awe in her gaze. Like she’s seen something worth believing in.

I bite my cheek until I taste copper. My fingers twitch toward the cuff of my sleeve again, needing something to anchor me, but Cassie’s hand lands on my knee under the table—steady, warm, citrus-bright tether.

And then, because the universe hates me, Jace Withers saunters past. He doesn’t stop—he’s too smart for that under Kline’s glare—but he slides a scrap of paper onto our desk like it’s a peace treaty.

I unfold it under the table.

“Do princesses do homework, or just sign autographs?”

My jaw tightens. Cassie leans close enough to read it, and her laugh is a quiet, wicked thing. She flips the note, I then scribble a reply, and she flicks it back into Jace’s path without missing a beat.

When he opens it, his smirk falters. My handwriting, neat from years of court drills, stares back at him:

“We do both. You should try one.”

He flushes, stuffs the note in his pocket, and keeps walking.

Cassie’s shoulder brushes mine as she leans back in her chair, smug as sin. “Best damn princess,” she whispers again, softer this time, like it’s a truth only for us.

This time, I don’t argue.

The bell rattles the silence apart like shattered glass. Chairs scrape, notebooks snap shut, pencils clatter into cases. The library empties in a hushed tide, students practically sprinting to escape Mrs. Kline’s talons before she can assign them crimes they didn’t commit.

Cassie and I linger. My ribs twinge when I shift my bag across my shoulder—too much weight dragging against bruises—but I grit my teeth and push upright anyway. Weakness is an audience sport here, and I refuse to give them tickets. Roran and Kael fall in like clockwork, one on each side, and for a moment it feels less like leaving study hall and more like being escorted from a war council under guard.

The hallway noise slams into me like a wall. Locker doors clang. Sneakers squeak. Someone laughs too high, too loud. The faint tang of cafeteria grease clings to the air, oil and salt heavy on the tongue. Phones click as heads turn, lenses following us like tracking spells, the ripple of attention trailing in our wake until it hums in my ribs.

By the water fountain, a cluster of freshmen huddle, whispering behind cupped hands. One girl dares to raise her phone, screen catching the light. Roran’s molten gaze flicks her way—steady, unblinking, dangerous. She drops the phone like it burned, cheeks blazing.

Cassie notices, of course. “You’re terrifying,” she mutters toward him, pitched low but sharp enough for me to catch.

Roran doesn’t blink. “Effective.”

Kael’s dry snort cuts the air, and saints help me, I nearly laugh. Nearly.

We press forward, weaving past a knot of juniors clogging the middle of the hall. One stumbles back against a locker when he realizes how close we are, clutching his books like a shield. His friend elbows him, whispering too loudly, “She’s just a girl—”

“Princess,” the first corrects, eyes wide, voice reverent.

Heat creeps up my neck. I roll my eyes so hard it pulls at my temples, muttering under my breath, “Just trying to get to lit class without sparking a revolution.”

Cassie bumps my shoulder with hers. For half a beat, she hooks her pinky through mine—smallest promise, quietest grounding—before letting go. Her voice threads through the chaos, low enough only I can hear. “Queen of the hallway parade.”

I don’t argue. Can’t. Not when my ribs are throbbing, my sleeve seam is twisting tight in my fingers, and the weight of two dozen stares follows me until the classroom door finally swallows us.

Ms. Ellery beams the second we cross the threshold, arms spread like we’re headlining a stage instead of dragging our battered bodies into seventh period. “Ah. Royalty joins us. Perfect—literature is nothing if not about performance.”

The class titters. Someone actually claps. I want to sink into the floor. Cassie doesn’t miss a step, sliding into her seat like applause was her birthright.

I mutter, “Kill me now,” under my breath, but Ms. Ellery is already off.

“Today,” she declares, chalk scratching across the board in oversized curls, “we wrestle with the unreliable narrator! Who decides what truth means when the storyteller bends it? Who decides how history remembers us?”

Her gaze sweeps the room and—of course—lands squarely on me. “Our very own Princess, newly unveiled to the world—history will write her one way, but who here can say what is real?”

Heat prickles behind my ears. My three-beat tap picks up against my thigh before I can stop it. I lean just enough for Cassie to hear and grumble, “Apparently not AP History.”

Cassie’s laugh explodes behind her hand, citrus-snap bright, barely smothered. A few students glance back, curious, but Ms. Ellery is too caught in her own drama to care.

Nate’s grin is smug enough to make my teeth itch. “All stories are exaggerated anyway. Doesn’t matter who tells them. Everyone lies.”

For them, it’s background noise. For me, it’s a ricochet. I can’t lie. Not clean, not smooth. My mouth just… breaks. Maybe it’s the fae in me refusing to fold a falsehood neat and pretty. Maybe it’s my brain, mapping every flicker in someone’s face until their intent is louder than the words they spit. Pupils twitch. Shoulders shift. A breath stalls. It’s all right there, a pattern stamped in wet clay. Give me a map of three Veil-warped alleys and I’ll walk it blind. Hand me a polished lie and I’ll trip over my own tongue.

And then there’s the idiots. The rumor that Mom took acetaminophen when she was pregnant with me and that’s why I’m “like this.” As if marshmallow-scented chaos comes bottled in a pill. Dumb enough to laugh at—until the president of Dominveil himself (papier-mâché hair, permanent orange glow, basically a conman who wandered out of a bad fable) repeats it with his health minister at his side, both of them grinning like carnival barkers. Not because they believe it. Because they’re hawking some “pregnancy-safe miracle” they own stock in. Snake oil dressed in a nicer label. Men in suits nodding along like it’s scripture. Headlines swallowing it whole. Another rung down the ladder of idiocy.

I should laugh. Saints, I should. Instead my three-beat tap hammers double-time against my thigh. Tap—tap—tap—tap. My ribs ache with every jolt. Breathe. Keep the edges soft. Don’t combust.

We’d been sliding scraps of paper back and forth all period—tiny sketches, cheap jabs at Nate, Cassie doodling me with devil horns. I should’ve known it couldn’t last. Just as I’m tucking the latest one under my sleeve, Ms. Ellery swoops down the aisle like a hawk spotting a mouse.

“Note-passing?” Her hand darts, plucking it from my fingers. “My favorite. Read it aloud, Princess Mira.”

Heat rushes my face. Every eye swings to me. Cassie leans back, grin sharp as a blade. Traitor.

I unfold the paper, fingers stiff. “If she says liminal one more time, I’m setting her highlighters on fire.”

The room detonates—desks shaking, kids doubled over, even the quiet ones wheezing.

Ms. Ellery clutches the note like it’s a lost sonnet. “Authentic critique,” she declares, delighted. “Exactly why our princess and her consort will lead tomorrow’s discussion.”

Cassie bows from her seat like she’s accepting a crown. I press my sleeve seam between my fingers until the thread bites back, ribs aching.

Ellery turns to the board and scrawls the title in big, curling script: The Telltale Lantern.

Gasps ripple. Everyone knows that one—the guilty man, the floorboards, the lantern’s glow that grows louder, heavier, brighter until it betrays him. A story where truth and madness sit on the same blade.

Ellery underlines twice, chalk snapping. “Tomorrow,” she proclaims, “our royal narrators will tell us: does the flame reveal the truth, or does it consume it?”

The bell still hasn’t rung and my head’s already pounding. I slide my thumb over the Consort ring, focus, push a thought across the tether.

Okay, from now on we use the rings, I send, the words pressing at my temples. Even if they give us migraines, it’s still better than detention or extra homework. Not like I need more public-speaking practice anyway.

Cassie’s answer crackles back almost instantly, dry amusement curling through the link: Maybe you don’t. But I could use some. Consider it training for our next press conference, Firefly.

I glance at her across the desk. She’s already smirking, blue eyes bright, plotting tomorrow’s debate like it’s a game she’s sure she’ll win. My ribs hurt from more than the bruises, but I can’t stop the corner of my mouth from tilting up.